Present at the Ranch

Tag Archives: vinyasa

For about the past month, I’ve gotten back into yoga. Well…I was never that consistent with it in the past, but now I have been doing it about 3 times a week. It feels amazing. Yoga is the one exercise or practice that I always seem to go back to. I believe I have the commitment and passion for it now to do it long term this time around.

Most of the classes I take are Vinyasa Flow which are derived from Ashtanga. This week at the Ranch we had Roswitha Kima Smale here to teach us the basics of yoga. I’m always amazed at how flexible and strong yoga teachers are and often wonder, can I be like that someday? Roswitha is no exception.

One of the reasons I love yoga is that it stretches, trains and tones muscles I didn’t even know I had. Even though the movements are slow, I always feel like I’m getting a good workout. I also love the fact that yoga focuses on breathing, especially after hearing Deborah’s speech on how bodies are not getting enough oxygen.

The class took us through a basic Ashtanga practice with many vinyasas between each pose. A vinyasa is a series of movements starting at the plank flowing into the low plank, then the upward facing dog and then downward facing dog. We did the class at our own pace since we were all at different levels. I for one am not that flexible, but I’ve been seeing some improvement over the last couple of weeks. Actually I surprised myself a couple of times in my ability to do some of the harder poses. Who knew?

All in all, the more I do yoga, the more I enjoy it and the stronger I feel. I thought Roswitha’s class was great even for beginners like me.

Roswitha Kima Smale is the co-owner of Yoga Center of Palm Desert, California. She has studying yoga since 2004 and has practiced under the lineage holder Sri K. Patthabi Jois.